


Fair is foul & foul is fair

by Minne_My



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pumpkins, Suburbia, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26967952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minne_My/pseuds/Minne_My
Summary: AU. Agatha Cackle is bored of the suburbs & her snooty neighbours. A little mischief won't go amiss
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	Fair is foul & foul is fair

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration from a private story

Agatha Cackle hated her fucking neighbours. Hellibore on the left and Hallows on the right. A rose between two thorns, she secretly thought. Egbert Hellibore was a pretentious twit and Ursula Hallow was no better than she ought to be. Her husband was clueless, their kids were brats and she was knocking off Hellibore in between PTA meetings and cake sales. Nothing worse than a bored housewife in the suburbs.

Agatha didn't even know how she had ended up here. Being fired from her high-powered city broker job for being papped snorting coke off a Venezuelan goat herder's taut torso ultimately did it but it galled her to know that she'd been caught just the once. So she'd retreated to her aunt Hermione's house that she and her sister shared custody of but rarely stayed in. Time to decide on a new plan. Some sort of online shop should do it.

Hellibore had lasciviously looked her over when she moved in but she gave him such a glare that he retreated. He tried his luck later on at an arse numbingly boring party at the community centre and she turned on the charm to see what made him tick but he turned out to be stale and vanilla. Helliboring was welcome to the desperate attentions of Ursula Hallow who was currently running him ragged. Agatha attempted to talk gardening with her but Ursula had a fake smile on and a distance in her gaze that told her audience that her attention was somewhere else. She grew vegetables in her front garden which was a pointless location because people kept trying to make conversation over it and she only maintained it to show off. Or rather, her middle brat, Ethel, was earmarked to maintain it. Agatha felt sorry for the kid. Sometimes she slipped her a bag of sweets and told her not to share.

It was the tomatoes that was the tipping point. Ethel had thrown a tantrum and refused to do the garden so the tomatoes were just rotting on the vine. Agatha hated waste. They seemed to call to her. _Eat me_ they rustled temptingly. Three dusks came and went before she plucked them. Nobody saw her and she made herself a delicious tomato salad for the next couple of days. She didn't even feel guilty about it. Ursula Hallow didn't deserve nice vegetables. So imagine her disbelief when the woman had the audacity to grow damn pumpkins in her front garden.

She ended up with a really good one. Agatha didn't know why it maddened her to see Ethel work away on such a marvellous pumpkin only for it to be abandoned when she threw her next tantrum. Ursula probably sent her to her room in disgrace and then went over to Helliboring's house to sit on his lap with a glass of sugar free diet wine and whinge about her recalcitrant daughter that protested to being used as slave labour. Agatha hoped that Ethel would run away as soon as she was able to go and live her own life. Meanwhile the pumpkin stared at her every time she passed the house and after another week had gone by, she could see that it would be forgotten. Agatha didn't like waste. She debated about stealing it as well but it was heavy AF. She debated about stealing it anyway and replacing it with something else. Something silly. Like…a toaster. Hers had blown up that morning, leaving her toastless and hangry and she did not appreciate having to compromise on chowing down on those nasty Swedish krisp breads her sister kept as an emergency stash. Like sawdust.

Under the influence of _Loki_ , she picked up a tiny pumpkin to go with her toaster when she next went to Sainsburys. _Loki_ was what she called her mischievous mood, especially when she was drinking cider. Under the cover of darkness, she crept past the gate with the embryo pumpkin and placed it down next to the big one. She rolled it experimentally to see how heavy it was. It was heavy. But they were watching TV and the curtains were closed. So she nudged the tiny one over and rolled the big one back out of the front gate. Luckily it was kept well oiled. Ethel was commanded to see to that. Agatha resolved to slip her a big bar of chocolate next time. She crouched down and rolled the pumpkin into her arms. It was bigger than a baby. Making sure that the blinds were drawn, she heaved it onto the kitchen table. It sat there, ponderous and vulgar and she contemplated what to do with it. She put the mixer and a few cookery books in front to hide it and went off to bed.

Luckily for her, it rained that night. When the Hallows opened their front door, a tiny pumpkin peeped up at them. Agatha could barely contain her glee as she hid from view to watch. She sniggered into her espresso. Ursula's face was a picture. What Agatha didn't realise was that Ethel was going to be blamed for it. The girl protested in vain and Agatha resolved to make an even bigger fool out of Ursula as payback. Hellibore was strolling along and had stopped by in concern. Agatha made her entrance.

'Look!'

They looked. The little pumpkin stared back at them blamelessly.

'How sweet' Agatha commentated noncommittally.

'No! It was huge and now it's…not. What happened to it?'

'Oh, it shrunk.'

They turned to look at her. Agatha schooled her expression into bimbo neutrality, one of her more successful ruses.

'Well, it rained last night. Rain tends to shrink things.'

She kept a straight face when thinking of things that could be shrunk, rain or no rain. Hellibore's little member, for one. Her sister's ugly pink jumper. Ada dressed like a cat lady librarian and her fuzzy pink jumpers made Agatha wince.

They weren't quite sure if she was joking or not. She could tell that Hellibore would fall for it because he was an idiot. Ursula was a lot sharper and a bit more suspicious. But she couldn't say anything in case she looked stupid.

'Well…I suppose.'

Agatha went back into her house and cackled as she turned on the radio full blast in the kitchen. She tuned it to _Heart_ to listen to Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden blabber on about nonsense, punctuated with the current crop of crap top ten hits. That would annoy Ursula. She took out her cleaver and chopped that pumpkin up with glee. She'd found a recipe from an American cookbook; she'd make pumpkin pie. It sounded interesting. Agatha liked pie. As long as it wasn't of the humble variety.

And yet the shrunken pumpkin was just left there. It annoyed Agatha even more. So two nights later she stole over again with something just as heavy as the original beast. She'd trawled the charity shops until one caught her eye. It was chipped and ugly but for £3, it would do the trick. She reserved it until she came back with a trolley to load it in. She christened it, Algernon. She left it clutching a typed note in its misshaped fingers.

She hid in a suitable spot the next morning to watch when the Hallows opened their door and found the garden gnome leering at them with the IOU in his hand. The forthcoming shriek chased the birds out of the trees. Agatha clapped a hand over her mouth as Ursula screamed at her husband to get rid of it. Hellibore, on his usual morning stroll, backed away from the malevolent grin and left the Hallow husband to pick up his traumatised wife. Ethel looked thrilled. This time her mother couldn't accuse her of smuggling a garden gnome in. This was clearly a force to be reckoned with.

Agatha ducked back inside and ran to the kitchen. Putting on the radio full blast, she laughed until tears ran down her face. There was still a slice of leftover pie for breakfast. 'Here's to you, Ursula' she cackled, toasting in espresso.

Oh when _Loki_ struck, it struck well.


End file.
